Category Archives: Side Sessions

Eternal was fresh from the Alaska run when he went to his talismonger contact to seek Berserker’s favor again. The physical adept was seeking to gain another initiate grade. She gave him the usual disclaimer about seeking out Berserker in his realm, however, the adept just waived her off and assumed his meditative state within the lodge. Stephanie just grinned and joined him in the lodge. She went into her meditative state and brought Eternal to the door of Berserker’s realm.

He found himself in a clearing next to the woods. As he scanned the area, there was no threat to be found. However, he went on his guard and ignited his sword. He drew Eileen in his other hand and issued an open challenge. The challenge went unanswered.

After a few hours, a strange blob appeared along the edge of the woods. The shambling mound of bleeding, festered flesh oozed towards Eternal. As it approached him, the mound turned into a vague humanoid shape that resembled that of a young girl. Scars, cuts and wounds oozed out blood and puss as it came to a stop. It lifted up a finger and pointed at Eternal with a vague smile across its face. Its finger fell from the rotted stump and another one grew in its place. Eternal took a hit of K-10 and felt the drug course through his body. He happily accepted the challenge with a smile of his own.

He pointed Eileen at his target. He poined the gun at his target and unloaded the APDS ammo in a full auto burst. The armor piercing bullets slammed into the shambling mound. However, it was hard to tell through all the blood and wounds that were already present if they bullets had any affect. The mound just kept on shambling towards its target and moved to attack.

From deep within his mind, Eternal started to hear the sound of ancient rythmic chanting. The chanting and voices were so loud and distracting that it distracted him from the fight. Eternal shook his head to clear it, but it failed. He swung the flaming sword at the blob and struck true. However, it appeared that the blob separated as the blade passed through it. Eternal started to get frustrated as it seems that he was able to hurt this thing. Meanwhile, the adept still found it hard to focus or concentrate with the voices and chanting in his head.

The chanting was so much that he didnt notice that the blob had wrapped itself around him. He could feel the pressure of the embrace. He could smell the burning flesh as the mound pressed against the flaming sword. He let out a scream as the chanting and voices got louder and louder and louder. It was almost overtaking him. He could feel his lifeforce start to drain from him. It seemed this spirit was draining the life from him.

Then he heard a voice. It was a familiar voice casting a spell that he has heard before. Through the confusion in his head, he could recogize that he knew this mage. The feeling of electrical discharge touched his skin as a lightning bolt hit the spirit that was wrapped around him. The spirit released its grasp on him just enough for him to escape. He gathered his wits and notices a wolf shaman next to him. Walker was asking him questions and looked concerned, but nothing was making sense to him right now. Then the confusion stopped.

Eternal’s mind cleared for a moment and a bit of clarity sunk in. The spirit was still there attacking him, but he had Walker next to him. it was then that he felt a sharp pain in his side. He looked over to see the mage had buried a dagger deep into his side. The pain shot through his body. He pulled the dagger from his side and buried it into the mage’s face. The blade struck true, but the made just disappeared in a cloud of dust. POOF! Eternal was alone again, except the two spirits.

The realization hit him as there were now to spirits attacking him. Both were within range. He started swinging his blade and shooting, but one of the spirits enveloped him again. The voices and chanting in his head started again. He reached down and set off a flash bang. The concussion of the blast shredded the spirit to pieces. Bits of blood, flesh and gore exploded as the spirit was ripped back to his home plane. Eternal was now one on one with the other spirit.

A smile came across his face. “Hi-Ex!” He exclaimed. “Call me, Eileen” the gun responded. Eternal looked strangely at the prototype gun. “Hi-Ex! … Eileen” he said again. “As you wish” the gun returned. The smile came back as he shot the other spirit. The grenade buried itself deep in the flesh of the spirit and exploded. What was left was a writhing mass of torn flesh, protruding bone and bleeding wounds. The spirit turned to make a break for the trees, but he shot another grenade that ended the spirit.

A slow clap came from next to him. Eternal, still on edge and high on the K-10, spins to face … Walker. The wolf mage was clapping for him. He brought up a finger to stop Eternal. “I have given you a taste of this power … should you want to pursue it then seek me out.” . He then disappeared, leaving Eternal alone.

The adept awoke back in the lodge. He still felt the sharp pain in his side and noticed the obsidian bladed dagger in his side. The runes on the dagger revealed that this was a powerful foci of some sort. As he held the bone handle, he could hear the ancient chant in his head again and the words of Walker. The adept left the talismonger shop blessed once again by Berserker … but at what cost.

“Beware, young adept,” Stephanie tells Eternal. “Beserker expects strength and prowess in his followers. When its time, he will ask one thing of you. To Survive. He will set the arena against you and put you against a worthy opponent. In order to be blessed by him, you will need to use all of your skills, talents and gear to survive. Are you sure you want to proceed?” she asks.

“Yes” Eternal says flatly.

“Ok then, I will open the gate to his realm.” Stephanie calls upon her spirit allies and a dimensional rift appears. “Step into the gate.”

Eternal nods and walks into a forest. The fir and oak trees here grow to sizes that he has not known. The underbrush is full of smaller plants, firs and stone outcroppings. He draws out his monoblade and submachine gun as he surveys the surroundings. As he is taking stock of the area, there is a sound of breaking tree branches, but he is unable to pinpoint where that is.

The adept sneaks through the forest, trying to get the drop on his prey, but then curses the woods as he steps on a branch. The snapping sound was enough for his quarry to pinpoint where he was. From his rear right flank, and bursting through the foliage was one of the largest bears he has ever seen. Rearing up on his hind legs, the beast stood close to 18ft high. It lets out a roar that froze Eternal in his steps and charges, but its claws just bounce off of Eternals body armor.

Shaking the effects of the roar off, Eternal makes some space between them and opens fire on the bear with his submachine gun. The burst of bullets seem to just bounce off the fur of the hulking beast. The bear returns the attack with another charge and bite. It attempts to bring its huge teeth down on the skull of Eternal, but he moves at the last moment and takes the hit in the shoulder instead.

Realizing the submachine gun is worthless in this fight, he drops it and sheaths the sword. The supernatural quickness of the adept allows him to bring out the Ares Alpha and let loose a burst. This time the bullets have some effect on the bear as blood is starting to show. The bear, now in a rage, roars in Eternal’s face. ALl the adept could do was drop his Alpha and run. Luckily, he was able to run faster than the Awakened bear.

Once he is able to shake the effects of the bear, Eternal swivels on his heel and digs in for the fight as the bear charges in on him. Still about 20 meters out, he grabs a hi-ex grenade and throws it. The grenade lands just before the bear and explodes, sending debris everywhere. The bear bursts through the dust field, seemingly unfazed by the explosion. Eternal pulls out his Predator and monoblade and lets loose a burst of bullets. The explosive bullets pound into the charging bear and take chucks of flesh with it, but it continues to charge.

Just as the bear leaps for its attack, Eternal side steps the attack and brings the blade down full force on the beast. The monoblade strikes true and cleanly severs the head of the bear. From behind him, Eternal hears the clapping sound of Berserker as he congratulates his pupil.

“You have fought true and strong today, Eternal. I am proud to have you as one of my initiates.” Eternal then finds himself back in the Stephanie’s lodge. Bruised a little from the fight, but proud to now be an initiated follower of Berserker.

Silver Tusk is by no means a large ork, but he still commands a sizable cell for the Bloody Tusks. He looks around his office, which is the actual office of the abandoned Paramount Theater, that he has been running his operation out off. Clicking through the tablet and reviewing the months take on the protection racket. “Hmmm, WaveRunner is still refusing to pay,” he said to himself about the harbormaster of the Oakland seaport. “I am going to have to have another chat with the ol’ chap.”

Then from outside the theatre, a burst of gunfire erupts. Quickly, he ran from the office and down to the entrance. Standing over the body of a person, the two initiates that were on guard duty for the front door. One of them, designated as Worm, was standing over the intruder with his AK-97. The other, designated as Maggot, was just a bit twitchy and the stench of piss emanates from the fresh stain on his pants, was pulling himself up on the wall.

“No idea Silver, this fragger just came up and said something, but then shot Maggot. I got a couple rounds off in him but he got me pretty good with that sword.” He looks down at the wound in his side.

He looks over to another ork nearby and whistles. “Tend to that” and points to the wound. The rest of you, get him inside.” He slaps a trauma patch on the intruder and takes a look around. He wasn’t worried about law enforcement or corporate security at all, but you never know if another gang is trying to infringe on their territory.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he asks Maggot as he finally gets up from the ground.

“Hhheeeee, caauught mmmeee” he starts to say but his words are interrupted by his body still twitching from the stick and shock that he was shot with.

“For frag’s sake …” Silver Tusk says while looking at him. “Thats it, your are now known as Twitch. Now get inside and get yourself cleaned up.”

The other ork gangers around them start laughing and calling him “Twitch.”

Silver Tusk stops by Worm and the medic as the others take the intruder to a nearby room. “How is he doc?”

He looks up at him and says “He’ll live. Its looks like he took the monoblade all the way to the hilt and is still standing. It seems that the slice missed all the vital organs and was a clean cut. Just needs some rest and the bandages will stop anything from falling out and he should be just fine.”

“Good,” Silver Tusk says and looks at Worm. “Your new name is now Hilt. Welcome to the Bloody Tusks, kid.” and leaves as a smile grew on Hilt’s face.

As he walks up to the room, another ork is standing there looking at the intruder. He has him bound up in the chair. “I know this fragger, Silver,” he says in a flat tone. “That ballistic mask, that sword, this is the fragger that my cousin was talking about up in the Tir. He says that him and his team took down a building and drug lab for the Spanners there.”

“What the hell are you talking about Hoodie?” he asks.

“This is him, this has got to be him, but what in sam hell is he doing down here.”

Silver Tusk walks into the dark room and throws a bucket of cold water on the intruder. They have a discussion and start going back and forth about what he is doing here. The intruder, who said his name was Eternal, is working with WaveRunner and wishes to have him get out of the racket.

“Interesting…” He thought to himself. “Lets see just how connected this new player is.”

“Ok, Eternal, lets make a deal then. To prove that your family is connected, then you will need to get me some hardware that we need. You see, there is also a new player that is moving against us. I know you aint with them, I can smell it. Being a family man, I know you would understand this. You see, the families and the Bloody Tusks had an alliance during the Occupation and did good together. This new player is a gang coming out of Los Angeles known as the Stiches. We need some hardware to hold them off, so if you can get me this, then we can come to an arrangement.”

Eternal nods in agreement.

“So what I would like is an Ares Thunderstruck and I need it within 2 weeks. Until then, I will lay off of WaveRunner and his dues. If you can get me this in time, then his past dues will be waived and he will no longer be required to pay his dues.” He looks at the bound intruder. “Untie him and get him his gear” he says to Hoodie. The ork goes and unties him and gets a duffle bag for him.

Eternal looks at him and agrees to the terms.

“Great, but I only tell you once. Don’t fuck me, Eternal. Don’t you ever try to fuck me.” The pair nod in agreement and Eternal leaves.

“Theres no way he can get one of those in such a short time” Hoodie says to Silver Tusk who responds with a sly smile “I know …”

So I get a call from a suit that I know that wants to set up a meeting with Havoc Squad’s decker, Tatters, and only him. I thought it was strange that she wanted just him, but she hasn’t screwed me in the past, so I set it up. Duchess was working with the Havoc Squad on her job, so they should be fine without him. If she needs some Matrix support, she would let me know. She set the meet up for the 18th at 6:30 at a bar in Fremont.

The job seemed pretty simple, I guess. Tatters was needed to infiltrate an MCT research facility in Palo Alto. They are working on a classified project that was rumored to be a response to Knight Errants ACE units. He would be supported by a security strike team. All the intelligence has been gathered already and a plan developed. All they needed Tatters for was to access the host and acquire the research files. A little weary of this, Tatters discussed why they couldn’t use their own deckers. She simply said that he has a knack for this sort of thing and wants to test him out. Additional details were discussed and an agreement was made. A car would be picking up Tatters at the agreed upon time.

When the strike force picked up Tatters, they discussed the plan that was developed and what his role would be. There were four on this strike team all introducing themselves as Romeo, Mercutio, Tybalt and Benvolio. They also provided him a set of black full body after looking at what he was currently armored with. The plan was to have an aerial insertion from a VTOL onto the roof of the building. Tatters would hack the host and provide the access needed to their RFIDs. Once in there, Tatters would again hack the host through a direct connect and gather the data needed. Afterwords, the floor would be searched for any possible prototypes and assess their status. Evac would then be done by rooftop with the VTOL.

After a little tumble on the repelling, the squad gathered around Tatters to provide cover while he went VR. Mercutio, the mage, covered them with an invisibility spell and a mana barrier to protect his vulnerable body. With very little effort really, Tatters easily got into the host and set the RFID tags to have the correct clearance for the 54th floor. Mercutio then covered the team with a spell to mask any sounds. Once the picked the lock and headed down the stairs. Using a leap frog style tactic, the small team quickly made their way down to the 54th floor and into the research center.

Tatters hooked into the host directly, while the squad provided cover and security. This time, things were a bit more difficult in the host. While he did happen to get the correct files for the research project, it took time to defuse the databomb, decrypt and copy the file. However, he was able to without drawing the attention of the host or its deadly intrusion countermeasures.

The team then formed up in a diamond formation to survey the floor for any prototypes. They came upon a chamber with 4 stasis pods. One was empty, but the other three had a very large ogre and two extremely large giants in them. Only moments into surveying them, the red lights above them turned green and the pods opened. The ogre and giants came bounding out with an almost supernatural quickness.

Using suppressive fire and movement tactics, the team was able to secure their retreat in the stairwell. However, it did not go unnoticed that the firepower they had was insufficient and barely slowed down the trio. They took the bullets with a smile and kept on coming. Only when they had the advantage that the stairwell provided, did the assault stop. With a quickness the elite strike force and Tatters fled to the rooftop and to the waiting VTOL. As they were leaving, they spotted an corpsec HTR team aboard VTOLs as well descending on the building. They had left just in the nick of time.

Now with the threat of his life not hanging in the balance, Tatters made a copy of the files and reviewed them real quick. It seemed mostly project management stuff, project specifications, budget spending, nothing real .. wait. His train of though stopping on a dime as he noticed on some of the paperwork and photos a tattoo of some sort. He has seen this before … on Eternal …